Birth debrief- helpful?

January 13, 2016 10:33 AM

I'm looking for experiences with birth debriefs and whether people found them particularly helpful.

My experience: baby born unexpectedly 5 weeks early, some physical damage (to me), a stay in NICU followed up by hospital stays and surgery for both of us. I am mostly doing OK and my son is fab, but I am dwelling on his birth more and more when I was sure it would start to fade (after all, we've both come out the other end),but i was at the hospital the other day and nearly had to leave, I got that stressed. We would like another baby at some point so I want to get this sorted. This is in the UK, NHS. Thanks.

posted by threetwentytwo to Health & Fitness (10 answers total)

Best answer: I'm not sure what exactly a birth debrief is, but I joined a new moms group and the first meeting included telling your birth story. It was interesting to see how different people focused on different parts: getting pregnant, pregnancy, delivery, postpartum...point is, that I do think that telling your story is a time-honored way of processing it for almost any traumatic event. I also felt that listening to other peoples' stories was helpful even though their points of drama were different from mine.
posted by vunder at 11:05 AM on January 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Hi, so I used metafilter to help me process a similar birth story in preparation for my second child's birth. It was really helpful for me, both having other parents say, "yeah we felt that way too and it's shitty" as well as getting a better understanding of where the NICU staff was sort of coming from. Also, time.

I still have some low grade residual anxiety about hospitals and some authority figures, but it's minimal enough that my "logical brain" recognizes it and can override the anxiety so that I can do what I need.

If you want to talk, feel free to memail me.
posted by pennypiper at 11:54 AM on January 13, 2016

Best answer: Trauma is trauma, even if you come out the other side and even if that other side has a wonderful positive gain to it.

Points to consider as you move through your journey:

1. It is okay if thinking and talking about the birth and the NICU stay is hard, painful, or difficult.
2. Whatever you feel about your experiences is okay. None of it means you love your baby less. You are allowed to experience grief over how the birth went and still love your baby. These are not mutually exclusive.
3. You can feel grateful that you and your baby came out okay, and still angry, sad, upset about how the process went. YOU MATTER. If there is no mama, there is no baby, so don't pay any attention to anyone who tells you you should just be plain old grateful. Of course you are. But you can also be and feel other things.

Mothers of premature babies have higher rates of PPD and PTSD, which is perfectly understandable given the circumstances. Since this is so new still, it's still well within the range of normal processing for any birth, but I am glad you are watching yourself and reaching out for some suggestions.

I can say, without a doubt, that debriefing with the doctor who delivered did not work for me, but then in my case, I deem the doctor specifically an issue with how things went. I, personally, didn't get much help from traditional therapy, and talking with other mothers wasn't terribly helpful because none of the other mothers I knew had gone through anything like I had. I was pretty alone, and it was pretty awful. And that's not how it should be. I posted a lot about my experiences to Metafilter and some really good Metafilter people reached out to me, and for some reason, that did help. Yay, Metafilter!

But there are some organizations you should know about, all the same, and whether it's just the baby blues or temporary anxiety, they won't care. So it may be worth it to drop a line or give them a call.

PANDAS
Post Partum Support International
posted by zizzle at 12:08 PM on January 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

Best answer: I had a somewhat traumatic birth experience and really mostly what helped was just time. And I'm not talking on a scale of weeks but rather months. I was actually unable to read our doula's birth story or look at the pictures she took in the OR and recovery room for nearly a year afterwards (though I am now very glad we have them, I still don't look at them much) .

I did take the opportunity to speak with the midwives as they rounded while I was in the hospital and what struck me most with that process was how they made me feel validated and really invited me to feel my feelings openly. They didn't try to sweep the pear-shaped-ness of the experience under the rug and expressed true concern for my mental well-being, even after it was clear that physically me and baby were a-okay. If they had had cold or dismissive bedside manners, it probably would have hurt more than it helped to talk to them about it.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:50 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

My experience was very similar to soren_lorensen's. I have found that telling my story can be helpful, but it can also be not helpful. I would be happy to hear (read) your story if you want to share it via memail.
posted by freezer cake at 2:15 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I had on paper a fairly non-remarkable delivery, but they did have me fully prepped for an emergency c-section had the forceps not worked and it was to me a bit traumatic. After the birth for the first couple of weeks I could not even start thinking about it without shaking and feeling incredibly upset and anxious; the only thing I found that helped was snuggling with my newborn. For some reason all those hormones calmed me better than anything else. Had that not done the trick I absolutely would have sought treatment for some sort of post-partum mental health issue.

I didn't have anything called a formal debrief but in all honesty when I did discuss it with medical professionals (at the hospital and later with my GP) it upset me that they considered it all "normal." It was, clinically speaking. But they didn't really validate at all what I was feeling about it, and that almost offended me. (It's not their job to, but it didn't stop me from being annoyed.)

If anecdotes help at all, that anxiety and panic did fade. I'm still not excited about my delivery, but it isn't anywhere near as scary to think about now. Sometimes having another kid even actually sounds like a good idea. It did definitely take me many months to get to that point, though, and that's probably still fairly quickly compared to a lot of people.

Good luck with your healing and recovery.
posted by olinerd at 4:24 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

As a mom with two kids born in the past 3 years and also a medical professional who has delivered babies, I think the above advice is correct in that the best route for a debrief (not sure if this means something specific or not) is with other new moms and not with doctors. I wasn't happy with the way everything went in either one of my births - I think most people aren't because of the idea these days that the whole experience should be rainbows and unicorns, or just basically there's this myth that if you prepare yourself well enough as a pregnant mom then somehow you can control your birth experience and make it perfect, even though that's clearly not the case. It ends up making moms feel guilty if something doesn't go according to plan, i.e. "my body failed" or "I should have ate more kale/done more yoga/done more hypnobirthing/whatever and this might not have happened." Which is a terrible thing, but I think that's why debriefing/having a support group is so helpful. For me I found it really tough to get out of the house when my first baby was born so I told my birth story in an online forum (not this one), and that was helpful. I liked having a few weeks to type it all out because I'm not an eloquent speaker.

For medical professionals I think sometimes they could take a 'debrief' type situation and feel threatened by it or take it personally. Especially here in the USA (which you're not) because of the litigious environment. However as noted above it's certainly bedside manner dependent. So consider the type of person you are (like to talk in groups, like to write journals, etc) and the type of person your medical professional is and I think you can decide on the best plan for debriefing yourself.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 5:52 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I had a traumatic birth experience (complications at 24 weeks; emergency c-section at 25 weeks; five month NICU stay; longer term complications) and I did do a couple things to process it. About seven months out I went to a therapist who specializes in traumatic births and was treated for PTSD. A few months later I ordered the surgical report and all of my medical records from the hospital and read through them. And a month or so after that I scheduled an appointment with my OB to discuss what happened and whether I should have more children. All three steps were helpful and I went on to have a successful (high risk but complication free) second pregnancy.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 6:13 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I'm so sorry you went through all that. Warning: tough birth stuff ahead.

I had a really brutal first labour with my daughter, who also landed in the NICU due to problems with the delivery and she did not come home, and I dislocated my hip in the labour, so it was fun times all around. The hospital where I delivered was experiencing collective shame and stuck me in a room at the end of the hallway and no one talked to me and the social worker was not around that weekend, and they transferred my daughter downtown where, once I hobbled there, it was a much better story. But wow, they worked /hard/ to make me feel bad.

Obviously loss is its own special pile of crap but I just wanted to say really that I needed to tell my story over and over for a while -- first about my daughter, and then actually a number of years later, about my own physical trauma. And then when my youngest ended up in NICU himself, then whole NICU thing. A single debrief may do it, it may not. I needed months and years.

If you feel like talking and telling your story please do find space for that whether a debrief, online (great links above) or locally in a moms group -- you are welcome to MeMail me too, I'm years down the road and I have no weird 'well your baby came home' stuff; baby coming home is happy but also terrifying in its own special way and sooo tiring.

It is so good and okay to take time to deal with this if you can in the fog of new parenting. Therapy is also an option.

I also wanted to say that some of the sorting will probably come when you have your next child, regardless, and that is okay. The physical feelings, feelings of labour, being in L&D, holding your next baby, all trigger those thoughts and feelings off. I've had two children subsequently and my elder son was so easy and we never had a whiff of NICU, and with my next I ended up feeling feelings that I had skipped with my son, and then the day he was admitted to NICU and we were there with those sounds I thought I would pass out. But what happened was a nurse gave me a chair, asked me if I was ok, I told her a very bit about my daughter, and she gave me a hug, a pillow and a shawl. We made it fine.

So it is okay not to be chipper-no-bad-feelings about hospitals and things. I have said it before and will say it again that the vast majority of medical staff you encounter later will help you with all that. So deal with what you need to deal with for you, but for your future pregnancy, you will make it through.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:13 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you all for your answers, they have given me a lot to think about. I may take up the offers of MeMailing in the future but I am genuinely grateful
posted by threetwentytwo at 1:23 PM on January 15, 2016